Author: Lait Kumar
Publication: The Times of India
Date: May 25, 2005
Ghaziabad: Increasingly Ghaziabad,
Noida and some other western Uttar Pradesh (UP) districts are becoming
safe heavens for terrorists, striking in Delhi. While evidences and instances
in the recent past corroborate this fact, the police in the area deny this.
Times city has details of well over a dozen cases that clearly show that
police laxity in Ghaziabad and neighbouring UP districts has directly been
linked with terrorist activity in Delhi.
Meanwhile, top police and internal
security officials have repeatedly clamoured for a buffer police zone around
Delhi, of terrorism has effectively to be tackled in Delhi. One of these
is former police reforms commissioner and retired Jammu and Kashmir director
general of police, B S Bedi. He said many UP policemen will have to stop
limiting themselves to extortion at check posts, and start systematic efforts
to re-orient themselves to combat extremism. " Otherwise, a common police
force will be needed for Delhi and its neighourhood , even if statutory
changes are needed for this. As Jammu and Kashmir police chief,. I had
traced an uncomfortably large number of Kashmir and Punjab related terrorists
to Ghaziabad and western UP." There are a series of incidents that
fuel the raging suspicions of complicity of this region in fanning terrorism
in the Capital.
In 1994, as much as 56.8 kilograms
of pure RDX was recovered from Ghaziabad's Lajpatnagar area, bordering
Delhi. But arch Punjab ultras, Kuldeep Singh Keepa and Devendra Singh managed
to escape. Eighty eight days later, the Gujarat police raided the local
residence of top ISI operative Abdul Karim Tunda, after some blasts in
Gujarat. Later, the delhi Police and the Centre Bureau of Investigation
(CBI) also conducted unsuccessful raids at the place., while the local
police remained oblivious of Karim's home being in Ghaziabad , Karim 's
name also figured in connection with the blast at Delhi's Odeon cinema,.
Apart from serial train blast s after the Ayodhya demolition. In 1997 began
a chain of events that placed the city on the world terrorism links maps.The
dreaded Umar Sheikh , who later murdered Wall Street Journal scribe Daniel
Pearl, was naabed on Ghaziabad.
In 1995 and 1996 blasts in Muradnagar
and Modinagar killed seven and nine persons respectively, A terrorist carrying
bombs and an AK-47 assault rifle was shot in Noida last year. The list
is fat from complete. Surprisingly, the police have not shown much enthusiasm
in working on this line. Only three days ago, four live grenades were seized
from Sihani Gate police station area. Police station chief, Randhir Singh
said: " these must have arrived in some scrap, and somebody abandoned them
here."
Meerut police range deputy inspector
general, R K Vishwakarma and Ghaziabad and Noida district n magistrate,
Santosh Yadev, were not contactable for comments. But Ghaziabad district
police chief, J N Singh said" " Criminals from Delhi hide in UP,
like some UP criminals hide in Delhi. But, we do not think that UP is a
haven for terrorists."
